IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ijecbs/v16y2009i1p87-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Persistence of Profits, Sectoral Heterogeneity and Firms' Characteristics

Author

Listed:
  • Eleonora Bartoloni
  • Maurizio Baussola

Abstract

The analysis of the persistence of profits has long been a controversial issue within empirical industrial organisation literature. The aim of our paper is to provide new empirical findings that may account for patterns of both sectoral and firm profit persistence. The distinctive feature of our study is that we analyse a number of firms' ergodic distribution in each sector according to their profit level; we then calculate the difference between such a distribution and that prevailing in manufacturing as a whole. Finally, we break down this distribution; the resulting breakdown highlights the impact of each transition probability on inter-sectoral differences clearly, and it also emphasises the role of intra-sectoral dynamics in determining different persistence patterns. We then apply this methodology to both innovating and non-innovating firms, and conclude that among surviving firms innovation is indeed crucial to the persistence of profits. In addition, we set up an econometric test which enables us to estimate the impact of firm and sectoral characteristics on a firm's profit condition.

Suggested Citation

  • Eleonora Bartoloni & Maurizio Baussola, 2009. "The Persistence of Profits, Sectoral Heterogeneity and Firms' Characteristics," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 87-111.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:16:y:2009:i:1:p:87-111
    DOI: 10.1080/13571510802638973
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13571510802638973
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13571510802638973?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1979. "Labor Market Dynamics and Unemployemnt: A Reconsideration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(1), pages 13-72.
    2. Adelina Gschwandtner, 2004. "Evolution of Profit Persistence in the US: Evidence from four 20-years periods," Vienna Economics Papers 0410, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. L. Crosato & P. Ganugi, 2007. "Statistical regularity of firm size distribution: the Pareto IV and truncated Yule for Italian SCI manufacturing," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 16(1), pages 85-115, June.
    2. Dinesh Jaisinghani & Mahesh Joshi & Jatin Goyal & Sharad Sharma, 2023. "Persistence of financial efficiency in indian hospitality and tourism industry: a dynamic panel Approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1845-1863, April.
    3. Zeren, Feyyaz & Öztürk, Erkan, 2015. "Testing For Profit Persistence Of Listed Manufacturing Companies In Istanbul Stock Exchange," Ekonomika, Journal for Economic Theory and Practice and Social Issues, Society of Economists Ekonomika, Nis, Serbia, vol. 61(2), pages 1-10, June.
    4. Elena Cefis & Stephanie Rosenkranz & Utz Weitzel, 2009. "Effects of coordinated strategies on product and process R&D," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 193-222, April.
    5. Mauricio Oyarzo & Gianni Romani & Miguel Atienza & Marcelo Lufin, 2015. "Spatio-temporal persistence of municipal rates of business start-ups in Chile," Documentos de Trabajo en Economia y Ciencia Regional 61, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2015.
    6. Maria Elena Bontempi & Luca Lambertini & Giuseppe Parigi, 2024. "Exploring the innovative effort: duration models and heterogeneity," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(3), pages 587-656, September.
    7. John Cable & Adelina Gschwandtner, 2008. "On Modelling the Persistence of Profits in the Long Run: A Test of the Standard Model for 156 US Companies, 1950-99," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 245-263.
    8. Liu, Jia & Lister, Roger & Pang, Dong, 2013. "Corporate evolution following initial public offerings in China: A life-course approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 1-20.
    9. Eleonora Bartoloni & Maurizio Baussola, 2018. "Driving business performance: innovation complementarities and persistence patterns," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 505-525, May.
    10. Eleonora Bartoloni & Maurizio Baussola, 2015. "Persistent Product Innovation and Market-oriented Behaviour: the Impact on Firms' Performance," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises1505, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jochen Mankart & Rigas Oikonomou, 2017. "Household Search and the Aggregate Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1735-1788.
    2. Stefan Hirsch & Adelina Gschwandtner, 2013. "Profit persistence in the food industry: evidence from five European countries," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 40(5), pages 741-759, December.
    3. Steiner, Viktor & Kwiatkowski, Eugeniusz, 1995. "The Polish labour market in transition," ZEW Discussion Papers 95-03, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Anne Perrot & André Zylberberg, 1989. "Salaire d'efficience et dualisme du marché du travail," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 40(1), pages 5-20.
    5. Aysit Tansel & H. Mehmet Taşçı, 2010. "Hazard Analysis of Unemployment Duration by Gender in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(4), pages 501-530, December.
    6. Lawrence F. Katz, 1986. "Layoffs, Recall and the Duration of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 1825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Galiani, Sebastian & Hopenhayn, Hugo A., 2003. "Duration and risk of unemployment in Argentina," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 199-212, June.
    8. Ingrid Kubin & Michael Steiner, 1987. "Dauer der Arbeitslosigkeit - ein regional differenziertes Problem," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 13(1), pages 55-70.
    9. Steiner, Viktor, 1993. "Long-term unemployment during the transition to a market economy: Eastern Germany after unification," ZEW Discussion Papers 93-14, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Darby, Michael R & Haltiwanger, John C & Plant, Mark W, 1985. "Unemployment Rate Dynamics and Persistent Unemployment under Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 614-637, September.
    11. Reinout De Bock, 2007. "Investment-Specific Technology Shocks and Labor Market Frictions," Working Paper Research 108, National Bank of Belgium.
    12. Wolfgang Franz, 1980. "The Reservation Wage of Unemployed Persons in the Federal Republic of Germany: Theory and Empirical Tests," NBER Working Papers 0578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andreas I. Mueller & Johannes Spinnewijn & Giorgio Topa, 2021. "Job Seekers' Perceptions and Employment Prospects: Heterogeneity, Duration Dependence, and Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 324-363, January.
    14. Alba-Ramirez, Alfonso & Arranz, Jose M. & Munoz-Bullon, Fernando, 2007. "Exits from unemployment: Recall or new job," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 788-810, October.
    15. Canarella, Giorgio & Miller, Stephen M. & Nourayi, Mahmoud M., 2013. "Firm profitability: Mean-reverting or random-walk behavior?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 76-97.
    16. Lehmann, Hartmut & Pignatti, Norberto, 2018. "Informal employment relationships and the labor market: Is there segmentation in Ukraine?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 838-857.
    17. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 2006. "Unemployment and Nonemployment: Heterogeneities in Labor Market States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 314-323, May.
    18. Tjaden, Volker & Wellschmied, Felix, 2011. "Exploring the Causes of Frictional Wage Dispersion," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 04/2011, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    19. Mahmoud M. Nourayi & Julie W. Suh, 2015. "An Empirical Analysis of the Competitiveness in the U.S. Airline Industry," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 5, pages 83-99, August.
    20. Kevin Lang & Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann, 2012. "Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 959-1006, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:16:y:2009:i:1:p:87-111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIJB20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.